Austria was once more victorious; hut the greater its victory the more complete was to be the triumph of the Roman Catholic Church. With this object the emperor issued the Edict of Restitution, in virtue of which all the eccle siastical foundations and other church property that had been confiscated for the behoof of Protestants since the religious peace of Passau (1552) were to be restored to the Roman Church, and the Calvinists were to be excluded from the benefits of that peace. This ordinance, which threatened to take a large number of bishoprics, and almost all the abbeys and other ecclesiastical foundations of north Germany, out of the hands of those who then held them, filled all Protestant Germany with alarm and pro longed the war. Many princes and towns re fused to obey it, and the emperor was obliged. in order to give effect to it, to keep his forces in the field. But these forces did not long re main under the command of Wallenstein. At a meeting of the Electoral College of the empire in August 1630, Ferdinand found it expedient to yield to the general demand for his deposi tion, and the supreme command of the imperial armies was given to Tilly, who thereupon marched against Magdeburg, which had refused to carry out the edict.
In the meantime a new belligerent appeared on the scene, one whose exploits form the most interesting episode of the whole war. This was Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. who landed on the coast of Pomerania on 24 June 1630. The inducements which led him to mix himself up with the struggle were the desire of protecting Protestantism in Germany, that of establishing the power of Sweden on the coast of the Baltic and that of checking the advance of the power of Austria in north Germany. For this last reason he had the secret support of the French minister Richelieu, who was jealous of the growing power of the house of Haps burg. Gustavus Adolphus was generally hailed by the inhabitants of the Protestant states of Germany as their deliverer, but the Protestant princes did not extend to him so eager a wel come. Fearing the revenge of the emperor they for the most part refused his offered alliance. and at the diet of Leipzig resolved to maintain a neutral attitude. The old Duke of Pomerania. whose territory had been terribly devastated by the imperial troops, had at once opened his land to him, hut the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony refused him a passage through their territories, and while the time was consumed in negotiations the town of Magdeburg, after repeated assaults, was taken and destroyed (20 May 1631). Tilly now threatened Saxony, and the elector, John George hastened to con clude, in his own defense, the alliance which he refused in the interests of the Protestant cause. On 17 September (0. S. 7 September) the forces of Tilly and Gustavus Adolphus mei at Breitenfeld, close to Leipzig, when the former were completely defeated. Tilly re treated to the south while the Swedish king advanced to the Main and Rhine. Before the end of winter the latter had made himself mas ter of the bishopric of Wiirzburg and the greater part of the Lower Palatinate, as well as of the towns on the Rhine. In the spring of 1632 he marched by way of Nuremberg to the Lech, on the banks of which Tilly had taken up a strong position. On 15 April 1632 this
position was forced by the Swedes and Tilly was mortally wounded during the engagement. After placing a garrison in Augsburg, Gus tavus Adolphus, accompanied by the former Elector Palatine, Frederic V, advanced as far as Munich, the Bavarian capital. Meantime the emperor had in his distress again turned to Wallenstein and induced him by entreaties and great concessions to undertake to levy and com mand a new army. After a successful opera tion against the Saxons, Wallenstein joined the Bavarian troops in Bohemia and marched with them into Franconia, where the Swedes had posted themselves strongly not far from Nu remberg. On arriving there Wallenstein took 1:43 another strong position in the neighborhood and fortified a camp. Here the two armies lay for months facing each other without coming to a pitched battle; until at last Gustavus found that the resources of the neighborhood were exhausted and resolved to venture upon an at tack on the enemy's camp. But in spite of the bravery of the assailants, the attack, again and again renewed, was always repulsed. Gustavus Adolphus was obliged to give up the hope of success in his attempt and soon after he led his troops into Saxony. Thither Wallenstein fol lowed him, and on 16 Nov. (O. S. 6 Nov.) 1632, a battle was fought at Liitzen, near Leipzig, in which ,Wallenstein was defeated, but in which the victorious Swedes lost their king and leader.
After the death of Gustavus Adolphus the direction of the war was assumed by the Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, who, in the first place, got the Protestant princes and towns of the Franconian, Swabian and the two Rhenish circles of the Germanic empire to promise in the Heilbronn Convention to uphold the Swedes until the victory of the Protestant cause should be secure. The principal generals who acted under him were Bernhard von Weimar and the Swedish general Horn. France famished supplies of money. Bavaria was laid waste by the Swedes, who since the death of their king carried on the war in as barbarous a manner as the Imperial troops, who were now quartered in Silesia. In this province and in Bohemia Wallenstein lingered without exhibit ing any of the energy that was demanded of him by the imperial court. This slackne§s, to gether with other circumstances, caused him to be suspected of entering intb treasonable nego tiations with the enemy, and Ferdinand ulti mately deposed him and placed him under the ban of the empire, in consequence of which he was murdered by some of his own officers (25 Feb. 1634). After this the imperial army moved into Bavaria, and on 6 Sept. 1634, gained a complete victory over Bernhard von Weimar Nordlingen. Several German princes, the principal of whom was the Elector of Saxony, who had never been well inclined to the Swedes, now thought it convenient to conclude separate peaces with the emperor, and the people gen erally began to cherish the hope of soon seeing the termination of the war. The separate peace with Saxony, the peace of Prague, was con cluded 30 May 1635, and in it Saxony received the whole of Lusatia as a hereditary posses sion, while the emperor virtually gave up the edict of restitution.